Judgment Day: The Army
by masked-spangler
Summary: The future. Sarah Connor survives Judgment Day and is struggling with demons, and with finding a role in John's army. When, in the mass of refugees, she spots the face of Derek Reese, everything changes...PART 3 UP! Please send feedback of you want more!
1. Chapter 1

Part 1: The Esplanade

This used to be a shopping mall. This much, she knows. They have all forgotten what the shopping mall used to be called before the world ended. They have forgotten what the town was called too. Most of the locals were killed in the first wave of fire those years ago; the scattered few who have scrabbled out survival are, like her, imports, drawn to the shell of the former shopping mall in search of Something Useful.

Her first few years, post-End, with John, were consumed by this never-ending quest. It was John, of course, who first realized that the most useful things of all were the people, and as he gathered them, trained them, mobilized them together under his fledgling command, she remained consumed by the things---the food, the parts, the ammo. Shelter. Clothing. The stuff of life. The game of finding, in what was left of humanity, Something Useful.

It was nearly a year before he first sent her away. He tried to keep their connection hidden. One never knew who was listening, and he didn't want her to become a target to those who would meddle with such things. There were versions of this apocalypse where she had not survived to this day. He didn't want them going back, in hindsight, and making sure it stayed that way. You're stronger than me, he told her. Better trained. More experienced. I need you.

So he sent her out, as his emissary, he claimed. But she knew the truth. There was a reason Jon was fated to lead this fight instead of her. Judgement Day had ironically enough brought a sort of peace to her at first---there would be no more waiting, no more hiding and running and training. This was it, this was their moment. The end. But after peace, there was suffering, and after suffering, there was madness---and dreaming.

The first skirmish was at Serrano Point. They knew this was to be a pivotal base for them, and John fought to secure it at the first opportunity. She had been wounded; not badly, but enough. She lost blood, caught fever and spent days in the makeshift sickbay, throwing up into a fire-warped garbage bin while a stranger mopped her brow. They told her afterward that she had spent most of the fever talking to a person she referred to as 'Kyle.' John had chalked it up to the fever and hadn't wanted to talk about it. It was some months before she had admitted that Kyle---his dead father---was a regular visitor. And that he was not the only dead one she saw in dreams.

There was a look he got in his eyes when he feared for her sanity. It was a special way he would glance at her through the side of his eyes, his breath stopping, his look hawkish and carefully appraising. There was no shortage of mental distress in this post-life world, but given their history---HER history---he seemed to fear for her especially. And what he didn't understand was how much worse it was when this was how he handled it. She wasn't crazy. She was coping, better than most, better than him, god help her---at least she had an outlet for it. Kyle was a benign enough spirit, and though not all of the dead were, even the frightening ones generally had something to teach her, some lesson or message or task her subconscious needed her to hear or to master. Needed her to master for HIM, she tried explaining once. So she could help him. So they could WIN.

It was shortly after that he sent her up to where they thought San Francisco had been, and she had gone on her own for awhile, in search of resistance. Where she found it---scattered cells, tattered husks of humanity cobbling together a life as best they could---she joined them, educated them, became their leader, and brought them forward with her in search of more. Every hundred or so people, she would make her way back to John, her maternal radar and his ever-growing infamy allowing her to track him and find him when she wished to.

Now, the winter was ending. She had spent most of it here, in the town with the shopping mall nobody remembered. The sole clue as as to its original purpose was a sign which read 'The Esplanade.' She had destroyed it on the first day she was here, showing the huddled refugees how to siphon off the neon and use it to power a generator. They were so changed now from the months of new skills, new knowledge and new hope that none of them remembered now that the sign had been there, or what it had said. Or that the almost comfortable base camp she had willed to life in her eternal quest for Something Useful had once been a shopping mall.

She was preparing now to leave again. There were some she could leave in charge here, to gather others, to spread the word. But most of them would come with her to what had been Los Angeles once. It was time to join her son again. She had a lead on where he was heading, and at just the right time too, because she had important news. Things were in motion, and everything was going to change again---for in the midst of the huddled masses, she had spotted a face she knew.


	2. Chapter 2

Part 2: The Caves

She caught up with him at a work camp on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Both of them had been there before; she knew he liked to change bases from time to time, to keep the troops motivated and keep the target in a motion changeable enough to not be tracked. This particular work camp was a favourite of his because the natural rock was hard for the Metal to penetrate. It was an irony in their make-up, that their scanning capabilities were more effective when aimed at synthetic shelters.

She moved her group---fifty-strong---into the camp, held their collective hands through the who-goes-theres and security scans and humanity checks they had to submit to before they could join the ones already here, then simply blended into the crowd and waited for Cameron to notice her. Where John was, she knew his bodyguard would follow.

She was pulled aside just before nightfall, Cameron greeting her with a silent but oddly welcoming nod, outstretched hand urging her away from the others and into John's inner sanctum. And there was her son. Through the depressing, absolutely aching fatigue that was very suddenly hitting her hard, she felt a surge of lightness at seeing him.

It took him a moment to notice her there. Then he turned, came up beside her and traced the pinkish lines of fading scar tissue snaking up her left cheek.

"This is new," he said.

"Uh huh."

"You look like crap. You hungry?"

She shrugged, and he went back to his work area, fetched a bowl, put it down in front of her. She spooned up some thick brown-ish stew, took a bite or two. Waited for him to speak again.

"I wasn't expecting you," he finally said. "Figured you would hit Serrano Point for fourth of July. You're early."

"I needed to see you," she said.

"Something happening?"

"You could say that. I saw Derek, John. He just wandered into my settlement one day..."

"You see a lot of dead people."

"No, not THAT Derek. The...the one now, from here. THIS Derek."

She saw the terror creep through him as he understood the significance. This was not the Derek Reese who had grown up, become his general and then travelled back to the past to father-figure his teenaged self. It was the boy of this reality, who had grown up, survived Judgement Day and was fated to travel back later. He had yet to meet John and become his general. He was apparently to begin this process now.

"And Kyle?"

Derek's brother. John's father. Another he was fated to send into death, and until now, Sarah's exclusive province...

"Kyle wasn't with him."

He gave her a curious look, too smart not to hear the relief in her voice. Kyle was in many ways the most important player of all in the legendary Inner Circle of the Great John Connor, and the thought of him being out there, unprotected, with the potential to be killed before he fulfilled his destiny, had been an ongoing nightmare of hers since Judgement Day. But the thought of finding him and setting that chain of events in motion terrified her too...

"So where is he? Derek always said they were together. Where is he?"

"I don't know. I saw Derek, and I just...I wasn't ready. I stayed away. Stayed...covered..."

He caught the beat of hesitation in her tone, leaned closer, traced the scar again---watching her eyes carefully as she endured the contact with only the slightest of winces.

"Hey, it's okay, Mom. It's okay."

"John, I...."

"It's okay. This looks fresh." He touched the scar again. "Healing, but fresh."

"It's better than it was. I keep it covered, when I can. Easier that way."

"It's still hurting?"

"On top, that's only skin. Underneath it, there's still...damage..."

"We have doctors here. I can get it looked at."

"That'll be nice. But that isn't why I found you."

"I know it's not. Derek?"

"I brought him. He's in with the group I brought."

"I knew you would. Has he been training?"

"I stayed away. I had to, John. I couldn't...not him, not Kyle, I..."

"You need to get over that. I get it, but you need to get over that. If we're starting this now...starting again, I mean, to send them back and maybe stop this thing...Mom, I need you. You're the best fighter I have. I need you."

"I can't face Kyle, John. Not this Kyle, in the here, the now. If we find him..."

"If we find him, you leave this Kyle to me. But Derek, you can work on. Mom, he came back once before, and Skynet still happened. Judgement Day still happened. The people we send back this time? We need to do better. We need to train them, to prepare them. Do you believe we can stop it this time?"

"John, I...."

"They've come back before. We need to do better this time. Maybe this...maybe this is why you're still here, you know? Maybe this is why you survived this time. Because I need you, Mom. I can win the war here. I was fated to. I can and I will. But to win the war in the past...maybe I needed you for that. Maybe I need you now. I can build the future here. Can you build the past for me?"

And so, at last, she found her place in his inner circle of command. He would command the army of the present, be John Connor, lead humanity out of the darkness and into future he would build for them. As he was fated to do. And she would lead the army of the past, being general to the ones he was fated to send back.


	3. Chapter 3

Part 3: Kyle

She was at The Cliffs, a popular hang-out she remembered from her youth. It was one of those scenic outlook spots so often the refuge of young people looking for a quiet place to experiment. Lush, verdant grassy spots shaded by trees, the odd picnic table scattered throughout the clearing. Flowers. Weeds. They grew like lice along the jagged edges of a formidable cliff-face that looked out into Los Angeles.

It was dark, and the trees had all burned away. You could still smell the stale ash of fire that lingered on the rocky outcroppings. She could feel the metal, sense it, see every detail in her mind's eye as they descended, dripping fire, dripping death from their giant metal claws. Watching. Always, watching.

And she could feel Kyle too, and she knew at once that she was dreaming.

She closed her eyes, suppressing a whimper. "Judgement Day. Again."

"Do you ever dream of anything else?" Kyle asked her.

"I dream of running."

"Oh, sweetie, I know. You never do, though. Run, I mean. You're always there, when this happens."

She felt the first faint prickling of smoke hit her tongue. "No. Not this again. No, I'm not ready."

"Sure you are. You've spent most of your life being ready," Kyle said.

"For this, maybe." She took in the splendor of Judgment Day with a sweep of her arm. "But for you?"

"Oh, come on. You've had this already. You've had ME already."

"I've had this you. I haven't had a living, breathing you I had to send back to die."

"Now, really. That's not what's scaring you, and you know it."

"Oh?"

"You have a list in your head already, of people who died. Kyle Reese. Andrew Goode. Boyd Sherman. Riley Dawson. Charley Dixon. Derek Reese. They died, before the metal came."

"I know."

"And you're thinking wait a minute, I'm in charge this time. Who goes back, when they do it, what they know...and maybe I can't stop all of this. But I can stop some of it. Save them. They don't have to die."

"Maybe they don't."

"Okay, maybe they don't. Because you're going to find them, right? You'll find them and you'll train them and you'll warn them. And you'll send them back again, and they won't die for John?"

"Maybe they won't."

"And that'll change things? Kyle Reese goes back, but knowing this time that 'last time' he died, and what? He keeps Sarah away from Cyberdyne Industries, and SkyNet rises again as it once did?"

"SkeyNet always rises again," she complained. "Maybe through some other way. But..."

"Ah! Some other way. But this time, you've maneuvered James Ellison to safety---to protect him, sure---but now you haven't got an inside man to keep an eye on things for you. And SkyNet rises again, through some other way, and someone else gets killed. And twenty years later we're having this same conversation, but with a different list of names."

"You're not making this easy."

"I know."

She gave him a look. "And?"

"And what?"

"And you're not gonna apologize? Tell me you wish you could make that way? This Kyle, dream Kyle MY Kyle, he's always apologizing."

He sighs. "Yeah. Maybe I'm not supposed to be your Kyle anymore."

"What?"

"He told you already. John did. Our son. He told you that you have to join the future, Sarah. You have to join the future and help him save the past. And that starts now, today, with what—and who---you have before you in the here and now. There is a Kyle out here, Sarah. He may not be your love, your guide, your long-dead protector. Not yet, anyway. But he's out here, and he needs you. And he's the Kyle you need to focus on."

"So, what, you're just going to...to leave me?"

He looked at her, gentle yet merciless, a sadness in his eyes. "Yes. I'm going to leave you."

She takes in the sweep of misery around her with plaintive desperation. "Here?"

"Yes."

"I need you."

"No. You are Sarah Connor."

"I need you. Kyle...MY Kyle...I'll do it, I will, I'll find you and train you and love you and send you back to die again, but don't just...don't just LEAVE me..."

She whirled, the sound of metal overhead, the claws descending, as they always inevitably did in dreams, in nightmares, in life...

And Kyle Reese stepped back, and let them at her. As the panic took over and she screamed, more lost than even Judgement Day had left her, they got him, and he burned. Her last conscious image of her lost, ghost love before she woke up weeping was his melting fingers flexing in half-hearted salute before the bones burned out beneath him, and he was gone.

--

"Hey."

She blinked, aware of soft, gentle fingers.

"Mom. Mom. Hey. You with me?"

She felt nothing. Cold bones, cold fear. Shaking.

A hand on her forehead. "You're warm. Cam, she's warm, is that..."

She didn't feel warm. She shivered, huddled in the sleeping bag, John's scent filling her lungs as she burrowed into blankets borrowed off his cot, flushed, but cold. And utterly dead inside.

Cameron's face. Emotionless. Appraising. "She had a long journey."

"She's shaking. Mom, are you...what happened? Are you okay?"

She saw, even through her haze of sleep and shock and pain, that careful, crazy-watching look in his eyes, and she almost didn't tell him. But she couldn't stop shaking, and for once in her life, she felt alone, and stone-cold terrified...

"He's left me."

He frowned, glanced at Cameron, gave her hand a squeeze. "Who's left you, Mom?"

"Kyle. He left me, and John, I don't think he's coming back."

"Well, no. Being dead all these years, it would be hard for him to do that, wouldn't it?"

She flinched away when he tried to take her hand again. "But you know that he's...at Pescadero...other times too...Judgement Day...he comes to me. And I know what you think about it, but John, he's been real to me. He's been real. And...he's..."

"Okay, calm down for a second. Nice and easy, okay? All right. Now, let's go through this slowly. You had a dream, and Kyle was there?"

"He was there. But he isn't coming back again."

She walked him through it, nice and easy like he asked. And he said what she expected him to say. It was her subconscious, moving her into the path she would be taking. Closure. Natural course of things, all that. And she nodded, and let him touch her again, let him think he was nursing her through this last little growing pain before she would be Ready. But he didn't get it. And she didn't think he ever would.


End file.
